Journalist in Iquitos receives death threats

(IPYS/IFEX) – James Beuzebille, director of the radio program “La Razon”, broadcast by radio Arpegio in Iquitos, province of Loreto, was accosted by four unidentified individuals who threatened to kill him if he continued to criticize Roberto Rotondo, a businessman who works in the tourism industry. According to information given by Beuzebille to Mary Perez […]

(IPYS/IFEX) – James Beuzebille, director of the radio program “La Razon”, broadcast by radio Arpegio in Iquitos, province of Loreto, was accosted by four unidentified individuals who threatened to kill him if he continued to criticize Roberto Rotondo, a businessman who works in the tourism industry.

According to information given by Beuzebille to Mary Perez Cora, an IPYS correspondent in Iquitos, the threats were made on 17 August 2000 in the doorway of his home, where the individuals were waiting to give him the “message” that they were under orders to kill him. Previously, on 15 August, four men who were identified by the radio station’s staff as businessman Rotondo’s employees, were watching radio Arpegio’s installations and taking photographs of people entering the building.

In recent days, while speaking on his radio program, Beuzebille criticized the negative attitude that Rotondo had adopted towards the provincial municipality of Maynas’s mayor, Ivan Vasquez Valera. According to information provided to IPYS by Pérez, on 14 August a group of Loreto tourism industry businessmen sent a lengthy letter to the mayor accusing him of politicizing his work as mayor. The businessmen requested, among other things, that he desist from promoting protest marches and that he dedicate himself to promoting development projects in the region.

For a number of years, Beuzebille has been the principal target of threats, criminal accusations, blackmail and smear campaigns on the part of individuals and institutions, including the media in Iquitos, who are in some way related to Alberto Fujimori’s government.

Recommended Action

Alberto Fujimori Fujimori

President of the Republic,

Fax: +51 1 427 6722 / 426 6535

Dra. Martha Hildebrandt Pérez

President of Congress

Fax: +51 1 426 8290

Minister of the Interior

César Saucedo Sánchez

Fax: +51 1 224 2405

General de Division E.P. José Villanueva Ruesta

Commander General of the Armed Forces

Fax: +51 1 436 1423 / 435 4623

Ombudsman

Jorge Santistevan de Noriega

Fax: +51 1 426 6657

Teniente General Fernando Dianderas Otonne

Director General of the National Police

Fax: +51 1 225 1775